--- title: The Iconic Photo of D-Day | TIME description: Robert Capa's LIFE photos of the invasion of Normandy -- and a lone soldier near the beach -- are icons of WWII, and were almost destroyed canonical: https://time.com/video/8CmPFMLD/ og:title: The Iconic Photo of D-Day og:description: Robert Capa's LIFE photos of the invasion of Normandy -- and a lone soldier near the beach -- are icons of WWII, and were almost destroyed og:url: https://time.com/video/8CmPFMLD/ og:image: https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/8CmPFMLD/poster.jpg?width=720 og:type: video.other twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: The Iconic Photo of D-Day twitter:description: Robert Capa's LIFE photos of the invasion of Normandy -- and a lone soldier near the beach -- are icons of WWII, and were almost destroyed twitter:image: https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/8CmPFMLD/poster.jpg?width=720 --- # The Iconic Photo of D-Day > Sponsored content. Supplied in partnership with TIME. 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They are at time.com/newsletters and are separate from a paid subscription. ## Video: The Iconic Photo of D-Day [Watch (HLS stream): The Iconic Photo of D-Day](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/8CmPFMLD.m3u8) (4:56)  _Published 2011-02-10. Robert Capa's LIFE photos of the invasion of Normandy -- and a lone soldier near the beach -- are icons of WWII, and were almost destroyed_ --- Jul 27, 2023 3:09 PM UTC --- ## More From This Series [All Videos](https://time.com/video/) [Nurse In Iconic V-J Day Photo Passed Away](/video/yWsu6o7j/) ### Nurse In Iconic V-J Day Photo Passed Away [Behind the Iconic Tank Man Photo](/video/9ktJjcpE/) ### Behind the Iconic Tank Man Photo [The Iconic Photo of FDR](/video/p61VfGqg/) ### The Iconic Photo of FDR --- ## Transcript >> That soldier in that picture I think really does start to stand out as an emblem of the American military. >> The eyes of the world are upon you. The hopes and prayers of liberty- loving people everywhere march with you. >> Robert Capa was probably the most famous war photographer in the 20th century. D- Day was the moment where the American soldiers turned the tide of World War II and it was at that moment when the Allied forces started to gain the upper hand against the Germans. So Capa on the very early morning of the 6th was part of they believe the second wave, second group of the first wave going in onto Omaha beach. >> The darkness will be rent by noise and flame. Men's souls will be shaken with the violent says of war. >> It was a very chaotic day. The winds were terrible. There was mass confusion, soldiers were trying to meet each other on the beach, gonna meet with commanders, missed each other because of the winds and the waves were pushing people into different directions. So Capa was shooting with his camera through all of this. In testimony from other people and in leathers it was terrifying, very scary, dodging bullets like all the rest of the soldiers as they were getting up on the beach. Another soldier came up to help the soldier that was wounded, and the two of them pulled the soldier right up on the beach, and I think during that time or right before he took several photographs or at least one photograph and that one photograph was probably now the most iconic photograph of the landing and it sort of epitomizes what we know of the bravery of the men who were there. He's now been identified as Huston Riley who now lives in Portland, Oregon near Portland and Huston remembers being pulled up on the beach and he said look up and he saw one soldier and a man with a press insignia and he thought to himself what is that man doing on the beach. I think it's a classic Capa photograph in the sense that it captures so much of the environment in which he was photographing. You see a bit of the water and the waves coming up around the soldier. You see that soldier's face or just the barest glimpse of the outline of his profile to get a sense of the human component of the story which is really what Capa did so tremendously in so many of the situations he photographed. Capa photographed for about an hour and a half I believe on the beach. There was a soldier assigned to pick up all the film from the beach and put into a pack and then transport it back to the ships and that pack was lost. So the only film that survived were actually the films that weren't picked up the personnel who was assigned to that including Capa's. In the excitement to get the film prepared for exposure the heat went up and the drawing rack and the emulsion literally melted off the plastic film. So what was left were these 11 images of just the invasion moment of the soldiers climbing up on the beach. >> Almighty God, our sons, the pride of our nation, this day have set upon a mighty endeavor, the struggle to preserve our Republic, our religion and our civilization. ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"VideoObject","name":"The Iconic Photo of D-Day","description":"Robert Capa's LIFE photos of the invasion of Normandy -- and a lone soldier near the beach -- are icons of WWII, and were almost destroyed","thumbnailUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/8CmPFMLD/poster.jpg?width=720","uploadDate":"2011-02-10T18:16:21.000Z","contentUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/8CmPFMLD.m3u8","embedUrl":"https://time.com/video/8CmPFMLD/","duration":"PT4M56S","potentialAction":{"@type":"SeekToAction","target":"https://time.com/video/8CmPFMLD/?jw_start={seek_to_second_number}","startOffset-input":"required name=seek_to_second_number"}} ```